Ventilated egg-case



(No Model.)

Patented Feb. 15, 1881.

a n'ii'gl Fig. 4'

000M000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 m m00000 m 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 6. F $3. M L i UNITED STATES PATENT Grrrcn.

JAMES H. BATOHELDER, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

VENTI LATED EGG-CA8 E.

SPECIFICATION forming partof Letters Patent No. 237,802, dated February 15, 1881.

Application filed September 27, 1880. (N0 model.)

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, JAMES HENRY BATCH- ELDER, a citizenof the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Ventilated Egg-Gases, of which the following is a specification.

The objects of my invention are to produce an egg-case in which space is economized and perfect ventilation secured, which may be charged, stored, or carried with equal facility and safety upside down; that will not suffer the eggs to be broken by the ordinary shocks of transportation from which any drawer may be separately removed and the eggs therein tested all at once by candling or holding the drawer vertically to the light, and having mutually interchangeable half -drawers and detached self-adjusting paper fillers throughout. I attain these objects by the construction illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which- Figure l is a perspective view of the case. Fig. 3 is a plan, and Fig. 4 an elevation, of a half-drawer. Fig. 5 is a plan of a paper filler. Fig. 6 is an enlarged detail of the latch L, and Fig. 2 is an enlarged partial front elevation and section of the case, wherein T and B are sections of two half-drawers placed together without the fillers, and beneath it is a section of a like drawer with fillers c G and eggs 6 E in place. At E is a deviation in the plane of section, for the purpose of bisecting an egg, as indicated by section-lines in Figs. 3 and 5.

1n construction my case has only three dissimilar partsthe outside shell, the halfdrawer, and the paper filler.

The shell 01 d 01, Figs. 1 and 2, has top, bottom, and ends, but is open at the front and back. It is formed of half-inch boards nailed or dovetailed together at the ends, and for an ordinary five-drawer thirty-dozen case its outside dimensions are fifteen inches in height, twenty-three and three-eighths inches long, and eleven and seven-eighths inches wide, exclusive of the vertical slats that confine and protect the-drawers. There are three of these slats, i i i, nailed to the back and one central slat, g, in front, hinged to the case at the top and secured by the latch L at the bottom. At Fig. 6 this latch is shown to be a short piece of heavy wire, fastened by staples, so as to turn upon the bottom of the case at the inside,

the ends being first bent at right angles and in diverging planes, so that while the front hook turns from the vertical to the horizontal position the back hook oscillates within the slot beneath it. The shell or crateis also provided with horizontal slides or stops extending at equal distances across the ends at the inside. The ends of these stops appear in Fig. 1, but they are illustrated in section and profile at S S, Fig. 2. The stops and ends of the drawers are similarly beveled at the top and bottom to afford the stops a greater breadth of base upon the shell and to facilitate the entering of the drawers. The stops keep the drawers closed and in place, with an air-space of one-fourth inch over and under each drawer. The drawers are alike, and each is divided into a top and bottom half, T and B, exactly equal and similar in construction and interchangeable throughout the case. A half-drawer, T or B, consists of a rim of wood twenty-two and three-eighths inches long by eleven and seven eighths inches wide (for the shell above described) crossed by the ribs A a at intervals of not less than one and three-fourths inches. from center to center, and the distance between the series of ribs and the meeting edge of the half-drawer is five-eighths inch in the clear. The rim is made of strips half-inch thick by one and one-fourth inch wide. The ribs A a are confined only at the ends, and are left free to vibrate independently from end to end. They may consist of small wire, or, as shown in the drawings, of very light battens of wood not more than three-sixteenths inch thick by three-eighths inch deep. The

function of the bottom series is to give a frequent and elastic support to the bottom filler, O, placed loosely upon them, and that of the top series (when the half-drawer is inverted) is to merely prevent the top filler, c, from rising by the upward impulsion of the eggs. Each half-drawerhas at one end upon the meeting edge a central dowel-pin, 10, Figs. 2 and 3, and at the opposite end a corresponding hole to receive a similar dowel, th-us holding two halfdrawers in coincidence when brought together. I

The filler O or c, Fig. 5, is a sheet of very light straw-board cut to a length and width three thirty-seconds of an inch less than the inside of the half-drawer, and is perforated with round holes one and a half inch, or

thereabout, in diameter and distant not less than one-fourth inch from one another and from the edge of the filler.

In using my case a tiller, 0, is laid upon the bottom series of ribs, A, the eggs set on end into the holes. Another filler, c, placed over them, is followed by another half-drawer, T, inverted. The drawers thus filled and closed are shoved into the crate or shell cl d d, Fi and confined by the slat g, let down across their fronts and fastened by the latch L pass ing through a slot in the end of the slat.

The extreme limpsiness of the fillers O c, with six-sevenths cut away, adapts them to fit more closely the varying eggs. They are never subject to tensile strain, because detached from the drawer. They cannot buckle or double under COlI1[)1GSSlOll,l)0C1l1S6 of the opposing ribs on one side and eggs upon the other, and when the drawer is stood on end each row of eggs across it, excepting that at the bottom, rests gently upon the pair of elastic ribs brought beneath it. The sharpness of every blow upon the case is absorbed and deadened by these detached fillers following the eggs, fitting and uniting them and gently overcoming their inertia by friction upon or rebound from the elastic ribs, and they'also equally distribute the resistance to all the eggs. Their combination with the slender and elastic ribs, giving support to and confining the cards, has the following advantages over the solid fixed and rigid bottom and top heretofore used, which had to be of great thickness to permit of five-sixths of its strength being cut away by the perforations, and hence too heavy to permit the top piece to rest its weight upon the eggs: first, it provides a softer, more elastie, and pliant seat and holder for the eggs; second, it admits of the removal and replacement of the cards 0 0 when tainted or otherwise impaired, without mechanical labor or the loss of the whole bottom or top; third, the thinness of the cards 0 c in contact with the egg exposes more ofits surface to the free circulation of the air fourth, the upper card, 0, being at liberty to fall away from the upper ribs, a a a, and rest upon the eggs, takes up much slack and play-room that would existin case of a fixed rigid top and bottom; and, fifth, the cards 0 c unite the eggs with themselves into a mass by itself, whereof the chief weightis that of the eggs, which mass, resting loosely upon the bottom ribs, A A A, is comparatively undisturbed by the concussion of a sharp blow upon the outside of the case; and, sixth, the eggs are permitted to nearly touch each other, and are thus included in the smallest area possible.

I am aware that heretofore egg-cases have been made or described with series of drawers sliding horizontally into an outside box with anger holes bored through for ventilation, and therefore I do not claim a case with sliding drawers, nor a ventilated case, broadly.

In the patent of A. Selkirk, April 20, 1869, the application of perforated card-boards in an eggcase is claimed when permanently glued or nailed to a tray and to successive tiers of slats therein. The only office which the card-board has in that device is that of widening by extension the lateral breadth of the rigid slats between the rows of eggs far enough to meet the eggs. This is evident from the fact that the patentee describes strips of card-board cut to the requisite width for such extension, and glued or nailed to said slats as an equivalent, in allrespects, to a continuous sheet of perforated board secured in the same way. In either form the card-board and slats glued or nailed together couuterbridge each other, and a continuous sheet of card-board thus treated would form a diaphragm as destitute of all elasticity and pliancy available to an egg as if consisting of a solid deal-board with cavities for the eggs, like that in the patent of Edwards and Lee, March 26, 1878, or the slats in that of Lucas, July 18, 1876. In Selkirks device the cardboards are held apart by the slats, which also intervene between the rows of eggs, dispersing them at the expense of space.

In the patent of Laflin and Elliott, March 10, 1878, the diaphragms are firmly secured to the frames, held rigidly apart thereby, and, whether of straw-board or of other material, must be rigid enough not to yield under their load between distant points of support. The bottom of each tray is the perforated top of the tray beneath, and any sagging of the diaphragms exposes the eggs below to the crushing weight of the eggs above. The concussion of a sharp blow is communicated direct, to take effect with full force between the rigid diaphragms and the eggs in both these cases.

In my case the fillers are detached and loose within the drawers, the slender ribs are free from end to end, the fillers are not held apart, except by the eggs themselves, a concussion is spent between the ribs and fillers, as bebefore described, and the eggs are not dispersed by any intervening slats.

That I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. The slender and elastic ribs to A, confined only at their ends and disposed in a top and a bottom series, a and A, in the top and bottom of the drawer T B, with an open space of suitable depth between said series, in combination with the detached and looselyfitting perforated paper fillers c and 0 within said open space, all substantially as described, and for the purpose specified.

2. The removable top T of any drawer, with its series of ribs a, in combination with the loose paper filler c, placed beneath said ribs, for the purpose of holding down a layer of eggs within said drawer, substantially as described.

JAMES H. BATOHELDER.

Witnesses:

THOMAS MORRISON, Emmy M. W001). 

